Editor Letter For January 2025: Memories Old and New
Read the latest from our Editor, Jennifer McKee.
One of my most cherished childhood memories is celebrating New Year’s Eve with my maternal grandmother, Jean. As “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” was playing in the background, we’d set up a card table in the living room, with chairs for us and my favorite stuffed animals, plastic flutes filled with juice and some of the legendary kolaches made from scratch earlier that day. No one made kolaches like Grandma Jean!
If Grandma Jean tired of this tradition, she never let on. It happened every NYE from when I was in elementary school until I was a tween.
Once the clock officially rolled over into the new year, we unfurled our paper ribbons, blew our kazoos and rang our cowbells (I still enjoy a good cowbell ring today). We made our resolutions and made plans for the new year. We embraced each other and thought about the previous year, the good and the bad, those we lost and those we love.
I still do that today. Fiercely independent and unfailingly loyal, Grandma Jean has been one of the biggest influences in my life and on my personality. She taught me what it means to be gracious, considerate, uncompromising and loyal. And also some mean pastry skills.
So as we look forward to the new year, let’s not get so wrapped up into the planning that we can’t see what brought us here. Look to the past year with deference, remember what and who are important, and honor that.
And resolutions do somewhat still come into play for me, but now it’s in the form of trying to live a more healthy lifestyle, trying to find more peaceful spaces and enjoying beauty more, in all forms. Our feature “Sunshine State of Mind” encompasses all of this. Get out and get active with some of Central Florida’s most beautiful vistas in the background. Can’t you just feel the Zen? Head to p. 18 for all the details.
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy is remembered every January (and should be every day of the year). He made only one visit to The City Beautiful, chronicled at the Orange County Regional History Center. Find more about Florida’s Civil Rights heroes in our feature on p. 14.
With all this renewal going on, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention our Home Design content, which starts on p. 28—this issue’s cover home is a revamp, and we’ll show you plenty of before-and-after photos. Also, read about the companies chosen as the best of the best by you, our readers, in our Home Design Awards. We’ll also take you on a tour of the best Private Schools in Central Florida on p. 57.
